


you’ll get lost and buried deep (if you swim with me)

by stardustgirl



Series: the dead go on before us [3]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: (...in a way), (a series of), Adult Ezra Bridger, Adult Tristan Wren, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcohol Withdrawal, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Ezra Bridger, Dark Ezra Bridger, Depression, Everyone is Dead, Ezra Bridger Gets a Hug, Ezra Bridger Has PTSD, Ezra Bridger Needs a Hug, Feelstember, Feelstember 2020, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Imperial AU, Inquisitor Ezra Bridger, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Mandalorian Culture, Mando'a, Mentioned Sabine Wren, Ocean, Pining, Prompt Fill, Purple Prose, The Empire Wins (Star Wars), Tristan Wren Needs a Hug, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Vignette, and it’ll be explained later, but the short answer is: trauma, if you’re wondering if Ezra’s loving a bit fast, its because he is, it’s. not very bad in this one. but uhhh it does, or in prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:34:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26211982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustgirl/pseuds/stardustgirl
Summary: Peace is hard when it’s a first for both of them.(Prompt fill for “Ocean” for Day 2 of Feelstember.)
Relationships: Ezra Bridger/Tristan Wren
Series: the dead go on before us [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1882459
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21
Collections: Feelstember 2020





	you’ll get lost and buried deep (if you swim with me)

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Withdrawal, Depression

**i.**

Tristan’s never seen an ocean, but he thinks he understands what his _buir_ means now when he says painting is a vast ocean, and that his love for Mother is the same.

This trip they’re on—because he refuses to call it more than that, refuses refuses refuses because Ezra has made it clear he thinks they’re just friends and nothing more than that—is an ocean as well. A different sort of ocean, he supposes, than the paintings Father makes. And so, too, are Tristan’s feelings regarding his companion—he refuses to call him partner, because that would just be cementing the uncertainty of the precipice they teeter upon daily—on this trip. They’re vast, and unfathomable, just like the concept of an ocean.

* * *

**ii.**

Ezra has them stop on a planet for fuel. He calls the planet an ocean planet, says where he comes from has an ocean like it. Then he gets that look in his eye, the same look he had when he’d asked to kiss Tristan in the breathless heaving way he had whenever—Tristan can only hazard guesses here, and only based off of what he’s seen thus far—things got too much for him and his mentor pushed him too far. Tristan is content without knowing about his homeworld, though; after all, who knows how long they’ll wander.

He doesn’t. And he doubts Ezra knows, either.

* * *

**iii.**

Tristan never asks how long they’ll stay here. If he’s honest with himself, he doesn’t think he’ll _need_ to. But something about the ocean seems to draw Ezra in, to ground him. And stars know they both need as much grounding as they can get these days.

So Tristan never asks. He only watches, watches as Ezra sits on the edges of piers and stares out at boats in the distance— _a big lake,_ Tristan thinks, _like the one at home, only you can never reach the other side from here—_ and seems to feel a deep sadness that only he is capable of vocalizing. He never does, though. Instead, he just stares.

Tristan worries.

* * *

**iv.**

He still doesn’t ask how long they’ll stay, not even when Ezra begins to come back to the ship later and later each night, the smell of _gal_ surrounding him like the sadness seems to, and locks himself in his cabin. Ezra never breathes a word of it the morning after, but he can see the dark bags that were starting to disappear a few weeks into his stint at the academy returning. Tristan hesitates every night as he passes Ezra’s cabin, fist raised and ready to knock until he thinks better of it and moves on. Ezra will talk when he’s ready, he’s sure. They both will.

He just wishes Ezra would be ready faster, because Tristan thinks that the endless ocean between them is only growing larger by the day.

* * *

**v.**

Tristan tries to talk to Ezra about it one morning when it seems they’ll never leave. He’s not sure how to start, so he wakes early, makes them both caf—Ezra gets black with lots of sugar, as usual, like how Tristan’s watched him make it, like how Sabine likes hers; just how much of _both_ their lives has she affected?—and sets Ezra’s cup on the opposite side of the small, rickety table they found in the hold and set up in the galley a day or so after their escape. Ezra comes in, bleary-eyed and rubbing at the back of his neck with a yawn. He halts when he sees Tristan, gaze drifting to the cups. Tristan gestures, and Ezra sits down, suspicious. He opens his mouth to speak, then notices Ezra’s hair. It’s starting to grow out of its confines, helping draw him further away from the straight lines and creased folds of the Inquisitor he was once.

Tristan just comments on the hair, not on the way he hardly sees more than hollowness in the faded gold of Ezra’s eyes, not on the way Ezra seems ready to fall apart at a moment’s notice. Ezra mumbles something incoherent, reaching to touch it before letting his hand drift more than fall away.

The next morning, his hair is cut close again. Tristan doesn’t say anything.

* * *

**vi.**

Tristan gets a comm one time. It’s from the local cantina, he thinks, but he can’t tell for sure over the drumming of the rain on the hull. He has the night off from his job helping one of the locals calibrate their fishing trawls’ nav systems, thankfully, but he still isn’t expecting a comm. They tell him to come pick Ezra up. He does.

Ezra’s more drunk than he’s ever been, and he keeps thanking Tristan in slurred, half-finished thoughts as he helps him stumble back to the ship.

Tristan passes him a towel to dry off, grabbing one for himself as well, but the minute he turns his back he feels a hand on his shoulder.

Ezra’s there, leaning heavily on him. He asks to kiss him, adding something else that’s too slurred to make out but sounds like _most beautiful man I’ve met._ Tristan wants to agree, he wants to say yes, but he knows come morning they would both regret it happening like this. He says no, gently tries to push Ezra off, but the other youth insists until Tristan finally asks if he wants to sleep.

Ezra is so exhausted he agrees instantly.

Tristan leads him to his room, helping him get into the bunk and under the covers before leaving and turning out the light.

The next morning, neither of them bring it up. Tristan doesn’t want to drive the already widening wedge between them further, so all he does is asks Ezra not to drink that much again. Ezra agrees. Reluctantly.

* * *

**vii.**

Ezra walks into the galley one morning, and Tristan raises an eyebrow at the stubble shadowing the lower half of his face.

Ezra seems not to notice until he’s bringing a ration bar to his mouth and a thumb brushes against it. He lowers his breakfast, hesitant, and then mumbles an excuse before walking out.

Tristan goes after him when it’s been an hour and he still hasn’t returned. He finds him in the ship’s ‘fresher, the door wide open, standing in front of the mirror and bracing his hands against the sink as he chants something under his breath. Tristan clears his throat and Ezra turns, eyes wild and unshed tears glistening in the corners.

He asks what’s wrong with his eyes more than his words, and Ezra tells him in broken whispers as he crumbles. Tristan holds him, holds him even as he whispers about someone named Kanan and about appearances and about failures. Tristan holds him even as his words peter out into shallow, rasping sobs and jagged, cutting breaths.

Tristan never catches him unshaved again. He finds himself wondering, again, who Kanan is to have left a mark nearly as big as Sabine’s on the soul of the person he’s tied his fate to.

He wonders if Sabine knew Kanan, too.

* * *

**viii.**

Ezra doesn’t drink as much, after that. He starts just with less, then with going less often. Tristan can see the toll it takes on him, though; his eyes get hollow even as they get brighter, and Ezra’s constantly shaking, as if someone were holding him at the end of the pier during one of the hurricanes this planet is famous for.

The nightmares are another side effect, too.

Tristan wakes once, in the pitch-black of four in the morning, to hear Ezra’s hoarse scream. He scrambles out of bed, hurrying out of his cabin and across the hall to Ezra’s. He keys open the door without a second thought, grasping for Ezra’s hand even when his eyes fly open and he starts to gasp for breath. Tristan murmurs reassurances over and over and over until Ezra’s suppressed sobs die down to quiet, even breathing, and he finds himself waking in the morning on the floor of Ezra’s cabin, a blanket draped haphazardly over him, though his partner still seems to be asleep.

* * *

**ix.**

Ezra starts to sit on the edge of the piers again.

Even in the midst of the brief rainstorms so common here, even in the midst of the fog rolling in from the deepness of the ocean, he sits, gazing out as if trying to lose himself in the waters again like he lost himself in the alcohol.

This time, Tristan sits next to him, rather than watching from afar.

He doesn’t need to say anything, doesn’t need to tell Ezra he’s here. Ezra knows. He doesn’t always acknowledge it, but acknowledgement isn’t always needed in these sorts of things, in the vastness of oceans and the trickiness of feelings.

That’s okay with him, he thinks. He’s not sure, not that he’s sure of _anything_ these days beyond that he loves the tarnished soul kept close in the chest of the one beside him, but he thinks it’s okay that they don’t speak. Feelings go beyond that, he thinks.

* * *

**x.**

Ezra suggests they leave.

It’s been months since they arrived. Tristan agrees.

He asks if there’s anyone Ezra wants to say goodbye to in particular; he’s been out in the small town more than Tristan has. Ezra simply shakes his head, says that he wants to leave that behind, if it will let him.

Tristan says he knows it will. Ezra smiles.

He pilots this time, gazing down at the oceans below them as they leave the coast behind. Ezra doesn’t speak much from his spot in the copilot’s seat, but his presence is a comfort. It’s not often this ocean between them can be crossed so easily. He thinks they might be okay, now, if they can keep themselves together like this.

It’s not as hard as it was before, when they were trying to speak without knowing the words. Now, he knows he won’t understand. Now, he knows he doesn’t need to. Ezra has his own ghosts, and so does Tristan. And yes, they share some of the same.

But as Ezra rises from his chair, saying something about getting some caf, Tristan thinks he can live with his demons.

And then, there are soft lips pressing against his jaw, a voice asking for hesitant permission through them. Tristan says yes.

He’ll take the demons, and the ocean between, if Ezra comes with them.


End file.
